Cry For A Shadow
by Alpacca Joe
Summary: “Who needs oils, clay or metal?” A thin hand reached down into the basinet at her right side and brushed tenderly over the fuzz-covered head of a four month old baby boy. “I already have my masterpiece.”


Cry For A Shadow

**Disclaimer****: I have about as much claim to **_**Daria**_** as the stars to the sky.**

Cry For A Shadow

A Daria Fanfic  
_by Alpacca Joe_

Jane coughed, darted her eyes at the short brunette seated across from her and sighed. She wrung long, thin artist's hands in her lap and spoke. Her voice was hesitant, that of a shy schoolgirl rather than a twenty year old woman.

"I'm.... kind of... dying. Slightly."

Daria's glare was fierce and hot. She set her wine glass aside firmly; it clicked sharply against the mahogany tabletop.

"That's not funny, Jane."

Jane's smile was wan and tired. It contained none of the famous Jane Lane bite of sarcasm; there was a finality there that chilled the soul.

"Sorry, I just... didn't know how to say it." She licked her lips and Daria noticed for the first time that they were cracked and dry. When had Jane stopped wearing lipstick? "I have AIDS, Daria. It's pretty bad... The doctors give me eight weeks, but I'm such a procrastinator that it'll probably take me another year to get around to it." Jane tried to laugh, but it came out broken and hoarse, like glass ground against stone. Daria's face was frozen in horror and she said nothing.

A tense silence grew up between the two friends. Jane was the one to break it.

"I need you to say something, amiga. You can curse me, say I'm lying, anything you want – just say something. Talk to me."

Daria returned to the present with visible effort; her body seemed almost to shudder, but it could merely have been a trick of the low light. She blinked and a tear fell unheeded to the tabletop. The fat drop landed beside her hand with a mournful whisper.

"I... you..." Daria swallowed past the lump in her throat, tried again. "Why did you... why am _I_..?"

"I don't know how much time I have left." Jane shook her head against Daria's unvoiced denial and sent her jet-black bob flying about her shoulders. "Let me talk, Daria. If I can't talk about this with you, get you to accept it, I might not be able to do everything I have to. The doctors gave me eight weeks and with how I feel most days, they could be right. But my gut tells me I'm gonna be sticking around a little longer and hell, call me optimistic, but I want too believe it." A fierceness burned Jane's tired cobalt eyes and Daria allowed herself to hope.

"You've been busy at Raft, I know, but I really needed you here, amiga. There's just some things that can't be done over the phone." A steadying breath whispered across the table and Jane reached over, took Daria's small, cold hands in hers and caught the shorter woman's reluctant gaze.

"If..._when_ I go... whatever happens, I want Jon Jon to go to you."

It was suddenly very quiet in the small apartment. Dim lamplight filtered in from the livingroom and was caught by the medallion resting on the chest of Daria's forest green sweater. Jane felt the brunette's hands trembling and held them tighter.

"Trent." One petite hand touched the medallion and Jane suppressed a smirk. "Trent's his uncle, if anyone should–"

"No." All humor had drained form Jane's being and she shook her head sadly. "When I'm gone, Trent will have nothing left. After he lost Monique in that accident, losing me will.. it will crush him. Having Jon Jon will only remind him what he lost."

"But...Jane–"

"You're his godmother, Daria, and more of an aunt to him than my sisters could ever be. I wouldn't trust my son to anyone but you."

Jane and Daria shared a long, intense silence and in it, several things happened. For the first time, Jane truly accepted the immanence of her death, Daria began to cry in earnest and the old friends, for good or ill, realized just how much they loved each other.

"Oh, Jane." There was acceptance in that hoarse whisper, a bitter tonic to swallow though it was. Daria's hands gripped Jane's tighter, almost as though in vain effort to keep her ebbing life from slipping away. "There's so much left for you to do–"

Jane waved a hand in a dismissive gesture, pale face the picture of disinterest. It was not feigned.

"Who needs oils, clay or metal?" A thin hand reached down into the basinet at her right side and brushed tenderly over the fuzz-covered head of a four month old baby boy. "I already have my masterpiece." Jane's cracked lips stretched in that smile peculiar to mothers and as Daria watched the light fill her eyes, she know Jane meant every word.

Curled securely beneath his hand-knitted blanket, Jonathan Trent Lane tucked a chubby pink fist beneath his chin and slept on.

*** *** ***

Jane Lane died on a Tuesday. It was a fitting irony; she had always been fond of saying that while Mondays were expected to suck, Tuesdays, which were supposed to be safe from the unpleasantness of the week's recommencing, always managed to hand you a nasty little surprise all their own. Jane would have appreciated it; the thought made Daria smile. Trent stood beside her as he had every day of the last seven and a half months of his sister's life. Jon Jon was in his arms, tiny face solemn and still. Daria thought the small boy knew, in some way, what he had lost; until Jane had slipped into a coma six days before, Jon Jon had spent nearly every moment in his mother's arms and if anyone but Daria or Trent had tried to take him, the baby had screamed bloody murder. Jane had laughed. "A Lane in every way," was her proud proclamation when the child fell asleep the moment the assault was past. Daria missed that laugh. She would miss it for the rest of her life.

The viewing was over nearly as soon as it began; very few people had turned out for the service, mostly friends from BFAC and a few teachers and old highschool friends home for the holiday. The Morgendorffers were present. The Lanes were not. Jon Jon was quiet but restless. Daria took him without a word and the three of them approached the casket for the last time.

Jane lay on a bed of cream colored satin in a knee length black skirt, paint spattered black wife beater, trademark red jacket from highschool and of course, her boots. Daria knew it had been Jane's favorite outfit and had honored her friend's refusal to stand on ceremony when she chose it. Jane's devil may care red lipstick was in place and her hair neatly combed. Silent tears dripped from Trent's chin as he tucked an envelope into his sister's folded hands. Daria leaned down to add a pair of Jon Jon's booties, knitted by Jane during her seventh month, and so Jon Jon could touch his mother's face one last time. His tiny hands found her face and lingered for a long moment.

"Mama." His first word, spoken in a sad monotone. He would not speak again for several months. Daria shifted the child's weight on her hip and her jacket rode up to the waist of the pleated black skirt she wore. The only concession Daria made to the present were her slim, rectangular black glasses; other mourners looked on Daria's seemingly casual appearance with disapproval, but Jane would have understood. Daria absently brushed a tear from her cheek with her free hand and followed Trent out to the car, a small grey Ford in need of a paint job, but otherwise well maintained. The Morgendorffers, after taking time to administer hugs and offer sincere condolences to the only member of Jane's family who had bothered to come, slipped into Jake's Lexus. Quinn's bloodshot eyes held her sister's until the car turned a corner out of sight.

It took only a moment to strap Jon Jon into his car seat, then Daria slipped into the passenger's side as Trent started the engine. They drove toward the Lane home in silence, hands clasped tightly between them.

*** *** ***

It was Trent who did all the work. Thursday dawned overcast and gloomy and had not much improved by mid afternoon. The compost was all ready for them when they returned and while Daria fixed the baby's bottle, Trent poured his sister's ashes on the pile and worked them in. For nearly an hour he mixed and raked and when that was done, dug holes on either side of the gazebo Jane had had built during her last year in Lawndale. Daria put Jon Jon in his walker and helped plant the rosebushes. Together, she and Trent spread the compost over the roots and covered them with earth.

A few weeks later the roses were in full bloom despite November's cold. The deep red blossoms were steadfast and survived any weather, reminiscent if a certain artist's smile.

*** *** ***

She was writing in her study when the voice came, hesitant but welcome.

"Daria?" Jon Jon stood in the doorway with Daria's photo album in his hands. He had stopped calling her "auntie" shortly after starting kindergarten, and Daria let him. Somehow she felt closer to him when he called her by name, and now she smiled at the eight year old as she spun her chair in his direction. Jon Jon held up the album, blue eyes beseeching, and, laughing, Daria held her arms out to him. He climbed up into her lap and she wrapped her arms around him, opened the book to the first page and began. Her chin rested comfortably in the silky black hair atop his head and a contented smile touched her lips.

"Your mother and I met on my second day at Lawndale High. We were both sentenced to O'Neill's Self Esteem class–"

"I know this part, Daria." Jon Jon's hand patted the page – Daria and Jane's certificates of graduation from the Self Esteem class Daria's first week in Lawndale – and turned his large eyes up to his aunt's. "You never told me what she was _like_."

Daria smiled and quipped the expected response.

"She was almost as big a pain in the ass as _you_."

It was an old joke between them. After they shared their laugh, Daria sighed and pressed her cheek against his. He was old enough to know the truth now. Jon Jon sensed the change and waited.

"Jane was everything I'd hoped to find, but never thought I would. Before Lawndale, I was alone. I had no friends, no one who understood me. Your Aunt Quinn and I didn't get along much then, so there was no one to talk to." The stiff cardboard page turned. Under the plastic was a snapshot of a teenaged Daria, arms crossed, facing a blue-eyed girl in red and black. They seemed to be in the midst of some deep discussion. Daria sighed and trailed a finger longingly over the photo.

"Jane gave me a reason to live where I was just existing. She was a kindred spirit, sarcastic, cynical and jaded. She was my first friend."

Daria held her nephew in her lap and told him everything about the person his mother had been. Excluding the details of his conception and the disgusting, cowardly man who had been both the cause of Jane's death and the sire of her child, Daria left nothing out. She delighted in the way Jon Jon's eyes lit up because they were _her_ eyes. Cherished every smile because it was _her_ smile. Daria held her most cherished gift tight against her body and thought of Jane, who had once given her a reason to live and, just when that will deserted her, had done it all over again.

Four year old Janey Louise Lane wandered into the room which had once belonged to Penny Lane, climbed into her mother's lap and pressed a pudgy hand against Daria's bunging abdomen. Bright amber eyes smiled out of a miniature of Daria's own face and she hugged her child tight.

Trent Lane stood in the doorway, a small, content smile on his face. His full mustache was just beginning to show traces of grey at thirty four, but he didn't mind. His family kept him young at heart, the only place it really mattered.

On the wall above Daria's antique writing desk was the Lane family's prized possession. There hung a five by seven foot oil painting depicting twenty year old Jane Lane in a rocking chair beside a window, infant son cradled in her arms.

In the spring warmth behind 111 Howard Drive, roses rioted across the large yard and over the gazebo, wild and free.

**End**


End file.
